I have a 4 zone speaker selector. My Onkyo TX-SR601 has A and B speaker output.

Should the selector connect to A or B, or does it matter?

How many sets of speakers should I expect my 85W@8ohm receiver push? Will I have problems pushing anything other than 1 zone?

run them off the A speakers, don't connect the speaker selector to the B side. That is like connecting a speaker selector to a speaker selector. I don't know what you mean by zone one

Will I have enough power with this receiver to push more than 6.1 speakers? Will I be able to push my home theater and a couple other 2-speaker zones?

Spring for an inexpensive 2 channel amplifier for driving the other rooms. Take your tape or zone 2 output from your receiver and go into the amp. Then from amp to your selector. How many pairs are you looking at driving in other rooms??

I wouldn't run the other rooms off the 601 amp.. do like geraldb said and grab another amp maybe you have an old receiver you can use and run the zone2 outs off the 601 into the tape in of the other receiver and then attach the 4 speaker selector to the 2 main channels and set the receiver to two channel. Make sure it is on Tape-1 or whatever you ran zone2 outs to and let her rip. The 601 is a good unit but the amp isn't good enough to run the surround and a couple of rooms. This will save the 601 receiver in the long run.. Or you could get an installer from here or http://www.integrationpros.com and we can come out and make sure it gets done right without you blowing an amp hooking this equipment up wrong. It could save you money by spending a single hour rate... good luck and have fun..

I totally agree with the above two posts. If you just use the one amp , you wont have enough power, if you ar ein a surround mode, then the signal sent to the rest of the house will also be in surround, (not what you want), you want two channel stereo, the volume from the surround amp is the same volume that you will have in the rest of the house. With the second amp you can have two different volumes, one for the home theater, one for the rest of the house. If possible add volume controls to you rooms with speakers for better adjustment in each room, if thats not possible get a sel box with vol controls built in, they are kind of pricey, but it will be worth it in the long run, especially with 3 ore more zones. (not counting the theater room)

My 2
cb1

I am planning on 3 extra rooms, besides my theater room, each with 2 speakers (total 4 rooms). I also plan to add volume controls in each room.

To be sure I understand, how would I connect the amp so that I can play surround in theater room and stereo in other rooms? Tape out to audio in on amp will give me stereo only through the amp, correct? I suppose I could buy a used stereo to use as an amp if I wanted to save some money.

Any suggestions on an inexpensive, 2-channel amp that I could run 3-4 zones with? What is the minimum/optimal size amp I should shop for (suppose I should go a little over what is needed at this time).

Thanks guys for all this help....I love learning this stuff....and I appreciate the knowledge you are sharing !

This message was edited by kr8z1 on 12/02/03 01:18.

Most of the onkyo stuff turns off the multi zone when in surround mode, it uses that amp for rears, mine does anyway. But the bigger stuff with multi zone pre-outs will stay on to connect to another amp.

Right.

What you are describing is called a two-zone system, where the 5.1 or 6.1 or 17.1 is one zone, and the whole rest of the house is the other zone.

You can play different things in the two zones. Note from the description that if you choose something for the second zone's living room speakers, that same thing plays in the second zone's master bedroom speakers.

Consider using no speaker switcher. A speaker switcher gives you the ability to turn off individual pairs of speakers. I install systems, and people always turn on all the rooms and then never go back to the speaker switcher.

If you have a switcher and you are in a room that is turned off, you have to go back to the switcher to turn it back on. If it were on all the time and you turned it off by just lowering the volume to zero on a volume control in the room, life would be that little bit easier.

Incidentally, when some speakers are turned off, others get a larger percentage of the power, so they can play louder. But does that matter in real life?

So, instead, use Niles impedance matching volume controls (or any that allow various impedance settings; I love Sonance but they do not have these). You set jumpers inside the controls so each pair of speakers takes 1/8, or 1/4 or 1/2 of the amp's power.

You could also run, say, four pairs of speakers at different power levels by routing 1/2 the power to the outdoor speakers (they lose more sound to the outdoors), then 1/4 the power to the master bedroom, then 1/8 the power to the master bath and 1/8 the power to the kitchen...see? The smaller rooms need less power, and the above setup uses 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/8 = 1 times the power. The volume control instructions do not express impedance matching this way, but it actually does work this way.